The cobbler of Nîmes

The next morning Rosaline was once more among her flowers. There was no gardener at the château now, and it was the young girl’s custom to weed and tend her own flower beds. She was bending over some velvet-faced pansies, snipping off the dead blooms and plucking away the vagrant grass when she heard some one speak behind her, and looking up saw a hideous face peeping over the wicket-gate. Rosaline started and stood erect, viewing her visitor with a suspicious glance. But Mère Tigrane—for it was she—was accustomed to such receptions, and she only grinned more widely as she dropped mademoiselle a curtsey.

“Have some fish for dinner, my pretty!” she said in a coaxing tone, holding up a string of trout; “mademoiselle can have the whole string for ten sous!”

Rosaline had no thought except one of horror and repulsion. The face looking over the gate, with its wide red mouth and yellow fangs, alarmed her; she did not even look at the fish.

“I do not want anything, my good woman,” she replied, shaking her head.

“But ’tis fast day, my darling,” remarked Mère Tigrane, with tender solicitude; “all good Catholics eat fish to-day!”

Rosaline’s lesson was well learned and she was on her guard in a moment.

“We have enough fish,” she said coldly.

“But these are so fresh, mademoiselle,” persisted la Louve. “But then the young lady cannot judge; permit poor Mère Tigrane to show these lovely trout to the cook.”

“I tell you that we have more fish than we can eat,” said Rosaline, haughtily; “you had better try elsewhere.”

“But think of the bargain, my dear,” rejoined the old hag, in honeyed tones; “now the cook will know—or the steward.”

As she spoke Mère Tigrane gently opened the gate and entered, to Rosaline’s disgust. She instinctively feared the fishwife and she did not want her to approach the house. She moved, therefore, into the centre of the path, blocking the way,—a very bad move, indeed, for it roused all la Louve’s suspicions.

“Now, my dearie, let me sell these pretty fish in the kitchen,” she coaxed, approaching the girl and laying her bony hand on Rosaline’s skirt.

Mademoiselle drew back with horror, dragging her frock from the talon fingers with a little involuntary cry of disgust. As she did so there was a low growl from the hedge and Truffe, dashing suddenly upon the scene, sprang on Mère Tigrane. The old woman shrieked, snatching a knife from her bosom and striking at the dog.

“Do not dare to hurt Truffe!” cried Rosaline, throwing herself on the poodle and dragging her off before she had done more mischief than to tear the other’s clothes. “Go!” she added imperiously, stamping her foot; “you forced yourself in—and see, I cannot hold the dog! There is a crown to buy you a new petticoat; take it and go!”

Mère Tigrane gathered up the money greedily, and prudently retired beyond the gate before she spoke. Her little eyes glittered with rage, although she smiled broadly at the young girl.

“Mademoiselle is generous,” she said; “she has more than paid for the fish—will she not have them?”

Rosaline was annoyed beyond endurance. She still held the dog and she turned a withering glance on Mère Tigrane.

“Go!” she said sharply, “at once. Let me hear no more of you or your fish.”

“Mère de Dieu, but my beauty can be angry!” remarked la Louve. “Farewell, my pretty, and good luck to you and your dog.”

The old woman made her another curtsey and still chuckling to herself walked slowly away.

Scarcely had she disappeared behind the tall hedge when there was a footstep on the path behind Rosaline and François d’Aguesseau came in sight. He was soberly dressed like a steward, and bare-headed, having hurried from the house at the sound of Mère Tigrane’s outcry. He found Rosaline still holding the dog, her face flushed with anger and her eyes fastened on the opening in the hedge where her unpleasant visitor had disappeared.

“I heard a noise, mademoiselle,” he said, “and thought something had alarmed you.”

“And something did,” replied Rosaline, with a shudder; “the most dreadful old woman has been here trying to force her way into the house.”

D’Aguesseau smiled; old women did not terrify him, and he set mademoiselle’s excitement down to her nerves.

“What sort of an old woman?” he asked pleasantly; “you look as if you had seen a witch, mademoiselle.”

“And so I have,” retorted the girl; “a witch with a string of fish.”

He started; he too had unpleasant associations with an apparition with a basket of fish. He remembered the terrible tent at the fair, and the encounter opposite the Sign of the Golden Cup.

“Which way did she go?” he asked, and as Rosaline pointed, he went to the gate, and looked in both directions but saw nothing. “She has vanished,” he said reassuringly. “I trust that she did not annoy you, mademoiselle.”

“She was teasing me to buy her fish, and finally pushed into the garden,” Rosaline replied, “and then she caught hold of my skirt in her eagerness to arrest my attention. I was foolish, I know, but, I couldn’t help it, I cried out—such a horror came over me! Then Truffe sprang on her, and she drew a knife on my dog! I saved Truffe and ordered her away, but I know she was fearfully angry, and—and I fear her; I can’t tell why, but I fear her!”

“Put her from your thoughts, mademoiselle,” he said soothingly; “’tis not in the power of such a wretched creature to hurt you.”

“I do not know,” she replied, still excited; “we are concealing so much, and she wanted to get to the house. I was afraid she would see—” she broke off, her face flushing.

“See me,” finished d’Aguesseau quietly. “Mademoiselle, I pray that you will not let my presence add to your anxieties. I fear I have indeed exposed this house to peril by accepting Madame de St. Cyr’s beautiful friendship. If I believed so, I would quit it at once. My lot would indeed be a miserable one if I should bring misfortune to the roof that shelters me.”

He spoke gloomily, standing with folded arms and bent head, his eyes on the ground. Rosaline loosened her hold on Truffe, who wriggled herself free and fled away along the hedge barking angrily. Neither of them heeded the poodle, however, for their thoughts were of more serious matters.

“Have no fear, monsieur,” Rosaline said; “our peril could scarcely be increased. We are all members of a proscribed religion, and it is natural that we should all suffer together. It has been a pleasure to my grandmother to be able to have you as her guest. We have been so situated that we could do nothing for our fellow-religionists, and it is much to her to do even so little for you.”

“So much,” he corrected gravely. “I was friendless and homeless, when madame asked me to stay here, and I wish from my heart that I could be of real service to you, instead of merely assuming a steward’s place as a temporary disguise.”

He paused an instant, watching the young girl’s downcast face intently, and then he spoke again, with yet more earnestness.

“I have been urging Madame de St. Cyr to leave this neighborhood,” he said,—“to go to England. No one is safe here, and I cannot hope much from this insurrection, when I think of the mighty force that the king can hurl against these poor peasants.”

Rosaline raised her face, a look of inspiration on her delicate features.

“Ah, monsieur,” she said, “you forget that the bon Dieu is with us! Surely we must win, when the Captain of our Salvation leads us.”

He looked at her with admiration in his eyes. How beautiful she was!

“That is true, mademoiselle,” he replied, “but it may not be His will that we should conquer upon earth. The battle must be waged, and death and destruction follow it. I cannot bear to think of you and madame here in this château, in the very heart of it; for, doubtless, Cavalier will assault Nîmes at last.”

“Madame de St. Cyr cannot go to England,” the girl said quietly; “she is too old for the flight. We must face it.”

“Then, mademoiselle, I will remain with you here,” he declared.

She gave him a startled glance, coloring slightly.

“You promised your mother to go to England,” she reminded him; “and your single sword could never defend us.”

“And my presence draws danger—you would add, mademoiselle,” he said quietly; “that is true, but I shall not remain in this house, I shall go to the Cévennes, and there I can still watch over you a little. I shall indeed go to England, but not now.”

He spoke with such resolution that she attempted no reply. There was a pause and again Truffe barked viciously at the other end of the hedge, and a glint of red showed through a break in the thicket, but neither of the two friends noticed it. At last the girl broke the silence.

“I suppose the end will come some time,” she said dreamily. “The old château will be consumed by the flames that M. de Baudri’s troops will kindle, the garden will be a desolate place, and Languedoc will know us no more. I have lain awake at night thinking of it, monsieur, and yet I am not afraid. I do not know why, but I have never been really afraid of the day when this concealment must end. But oh, I do pray that my grandmother may escape! I think of these things, and then I come out and see God’s sun shining, and hear my doves coo, and it seems impossible that the world is so cruel. Is it indeed so, monsieur? Is my life here at St. Cyr a dream of peace amid the fierce world? Can it be that this too, that I have always known, will end?”

His face was sad and stern, and he looked at her with sorrowful eyes.

“Mademoiselle,” he replied, “I pray that it may never end. But once I too had such a dream. I was a little lad at my mother’s knee in Dauphiné. The sun shone there too, and the birds sang, and every-day life went on. I had a father whom I reverenced, who taught me and guided me, a sister whom I loved, and we were rich.” He paused and then added, “I am almost a beggar now—but for madame’s loan which my father’s prudent investments in England will enable me to repay. I have neither father nor mother nor sister. The château is a blackened ruin, the lands are tilled by strangers. Mon Dieu! my dream ended as I pray yours may not!”

Rosaline’s face was full of sympathy, tears gathered in her eyes, she held out her hand with a gesture of commiseration.

“Monsieur, pardon me for speaking of it,” she said, a quiver in her voice; “your sister—oh, believe me, I grieve with you for so terrible an affliction. God knows what my fate may be!”

He took her hand in both his and kissed it.

“Mademoiselle,” he said gravely, “while I live I will surely defend you from that awful calamity. There is no one to require my service—’tis yours, mademoiselle, and my gratitude and devotion. Would that I had more to devote to your protection!”